


Capital H

by Unda



Series: It's the end of the world as we know it [12]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 08:53:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11940669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unda/pseuds/Unda
Summary: A John and Dave sidefic set the night before to chapter 25 of MC Escher. Comprises the free will section: >Dave: Be John last night





	Capital H

_I'll be back tomorrow_

_I'll be back in the ballroom swingin'_

_I'll be back with my Superman action_

_And I’m off to save the world_

_silly me I left a message with no return number_

_for my boys in blue in case of an emergency_

_in case the shit goes down, yeah_

  


[turntechGodhead began pestering ectoBiologist]

TG: hey dude

EB: hey man!

TG: i wanted to talk to you about tomorrow

EB: ugh this stupid prank that jane has got you all in on? are you guys ever gonna give that a rest?

TG: john this time tomorrow you can be kissing my ass and telling me how sorry you are for doubting me but for the next idk half a day can you just pretend to believe me at least?

TG: youre at least going to play the sburb game that you and jane have the discs for right?

EB: i don’t know, it feels suspiciously involved with this prank.

TG: oh my god

TG: i swear to christ if jane has to start the fuckin thing up for you and hand hold you the entire time i am going to lose my shit so bad people will think karkat contracted some weird disease that makes him look like a human because surely no one other than karkat could shit flip like that

TG: is that what you want to do to me john?

TG: is it?

EB: wow dave that sure was some bullshit!

TG: look we have been best friends for years right?

EB: of course!

TG: can you just play the game and make sure you keep your dad in the house because he seems like a stand up dude and i dont want him to die

EB: dave! that’s not funny! don’t joke about my dad dying!

TG: im not joking

EB: dave this isn’t funny.

TG: again im not joking but seriously just make sure he stays in the house thats not hard is it and it costs you nothing to do even if you think i am making shit up

EB: i just don’t see why you would joke about that! you’ve had someone you love die, why would you say that my dad is going to die?!

TG: what? who?

EB: your bro!

TG: oh

TG: hah no honestly i probably like your dad more than i liked bro and i dont think ive ever actually spoken to the man

EB: what???

TG: look forget it i didnt mean to say that and honestly i never wanted to talk about that shit anyway

TG: just play the game tomorrow and keep your dad in the house

EB: you’re serious about this, aren’t you?

TG: 100%

TG: goddamn i just read that in equius stupid quirk hes ruined my brain i want to complain

EB: did you really mean that about your bro?

TG: can we just forget i said anything about it?

EB: oh no we can’t buster! not unless we make a deal.

EB: like say… i swear i will play the game and try to keep my dad in the house if you tell me what you meant about your bro.

EB: you always talked about how cool he was, what changed? why would you say something so terrible about him?

TG: god youre starting to sound like rose

EB: yeah well you like rose so i take that as a compliment!

TG: you know damn well i didnt mean it as one

EB: tough luck!

TG: are you really going to stick to your end of the bargain if i do this?

EB: i’m a man of my word! or at least tomorrow i’ll be a teen of my word!

TG: fine

TG: cant believe im doing this but fine like way to run your mouth dave

TG: god how do i start this?

EB: you’d better not be buying time to make some kind of horseshit up!

TG: im not

TG: ok uh

TG: right you strife with your dad sometimes right? tell me how that goes.

EB: he usually tries to force baked goods on me and blocks my path until i accept them, he is a strong, fast, and wily man!

TG: good fucking god

TG: i used to strife with my bro not that i got a choice hed just spring it on me and dirk

EB: same with my dad! his baking knows no limits. ugh i feel sick just thinking of it

TG: 

TG: ok im attaching some files from Hal this is like xrays and photos from the hospital that they took when i got back

TG: i hate that im doing this but if it makes you play the game and keep your dad safe

TG: and you know a picture is worth a thousand words and the less i gotta talk about this the better tbh

[turntechGodhead attached folder hospitaldocumentation.zip]

Your name is John Egbert and your best bro has just sent you a file, you’re pretty sure that this is some lead up to some elaborate birthday prank but you open it.

The first file that you see is of Dave’s messed up hand, he told you that he had to dislocate his own thumb to escape which is both horrifying and really impressive. It’s all gross and purple around the joint in the picture but you can see that someone has circled things on his skin in red ink, you squint at them and see pale lines on his skin crisscrossing all over the place. They’re over his fingers and up the outsides of his arms.

What is this?

The next photo is of his chest and you don’t need the red circles to see some pretty obvious scars there. There are other photographs of him with more and more scars, most look old but some less so. For a moment you wonder if he did this to himself somehow but no one tries to do what looks like a genuine attempt to remove their own internal organs.

You get to xrays and fragile cracks in bone are marked.

Your guts squirm and you realise that your pesterchum has been pinging.

TG: my strifes with bro werent over cake

TG: can we just say that i wouldnt lie about this and im also not lying about the game

TG: and that if bro were still alive today i wouldnt so much as piss on him if he was on fire

EB: he did all of that to you?

TG: yeah

EB: why did you never say anything?! couldn’t you have got away somehow or got him arrested?

TG: look the system for that doesnt work as well as it should and honestly i hate thinking about it and im fine now and i didnt tell you because i couldnt have you calling social services on us and splitting me and dirk up and having bro get all vengance about it

TG: look just talking about this is giving me hives ok and im literally only forcing myself to do this so youll take me seriously and play the game and keep your dad in the house

EB: this game that’s supposed to end the world?

TG: and save all of us playing plus anyone in our homes or thats the theory at least so just do it for me and the horrifying awkwardness i just went through to get to this point

EB: does karkat know about this?

TG: the game?

TG: of course he does hes basically our leader right now

EB: no! not the game, stupid. this stuff with bro.

TG: oh

TG: funny thing we actually met the day after bro died cause his dad does social work stuff and he was the one who actually interviewed me and dirk

TG: weird soulmate fate stuff i guess

TG: i didnt really get a choice about talking about it in front of him it was tell the whole truth or risk them locking dirk up for killing bro

EB: i can’t believe anyone would ever think that dirk would do something like that!

TG: uh yeah

EB: though i can see how they might suspect that he was trying to protect you but still anyone who knows dirk knows how hes nice under all of the sarcasm. jane says hes secretly a marshmallow inside.

TG: those sure are some words you just made me read 

TG: but im gonna go to bed soon just gotta check on karkat first

TG: just for real best bro promise that youll do what i said?

EB: oh my god you dork yes i will.

TG: thank you

EB: and dave, i’m… sorry about everything you went through its terrible and wish i could have helped you out back then.

TG: are you kidding? being your best friend and being able to fake that i had a normal life was pretty fucking important to me and im glad you dont think im like weak or anything like that for it

TG: right?

EB: i absolutely dont think you’re weak, i think your bro was a weak and terrible man to do something like that to you!

TG: hah ok well that is a pretty cool thing to read

TG: uh

TG: see you tomorrow

[turntechGodhead ceased pestering ectoBiologist]

You lean back in your chair and part of you is still expecting if not wanting a ‘gotcha’ to come. But Dave wouldn’t do that, not about something like this. Not about something that he would think makes him look weak, not that you think it does but you know Dave. Or you thought you did.

You feel a sick roll in your gut when you think of all of the times you complained about your ‘strifes’ with your dad to him, but then you all complained. Rose and Jade both. Did you do that when Dave was sat at his computer patching up one of those eventual scars?

You scramble to your feet and rush down the hall and burst into Jane’s room and fling yourself into her arms like a dumb little kid, not like someone who’s going to be thirteen in the morning.

“Whoa! What’s wrong?” Jane gasps and wraps her arms around you.

“Dave-” you stop talking abruptly, he probably wouldn’t want you telling anyone.

“What about him?” Jane asks, tilting her head at you.

“I…” you trail off and push your glasses up so you can rub at your damp eyes.

“John?” she asks looking at you worriedly.

“Has anyone ever told you something and you know they wouldn’t lie about that but you really super want it to not be true but you feel terrible for thinking that?” you blurt out.

Jane snorts and leans back, holding up the arm with her soulmark on. The one she denied for so long.

“Ok, fair point.” you mumble.

“My question is what made you feel like that?” your sister asks, poking you in the shoulder.

“Just something Dave told me.” you hedge and Jane narrows her eyes at you suspiciously until something like realisation flickers over her features.

“A-about what?” she asks with forced casualness.

You squint at her, does she know?

“About his bro.” you say vaguely.

“What did he say?” Jane asks.

“You know, don’t you?” you accuse her.

“Look, Dirk told me something that _might_ be what you’re talking about but I don’t want to say if it’s not because it’s really not my place to do so. It was very much in confidence.” Jane says stiffly and you know she won’t be budged on this unless you speak first.

You try to wrap your mouth around what you want to say, about this awful fact that Dave just dumped into your brain and you can’t manage to. You look down at your new phone and pull open the photo of Dave’s chest and instead of saying anything you just hold it up to her.

Jane’s eyes go wide and her face becomes pained. There’s no confusion there. No ‘how did that happen’, no she knows.

“Oh… Dave.” Jane whispers.

You shove your phone away, you can’t look at the picture anymore.

“Dirk told you?” you ask and Jane gets up and sits on her bed, she pats the space next to her and you join her. She sets her fingers into her lap and picks at her fingernails anxiously.

“After I met Roxy and all that business happened he messaged me. I told him that I was staying at the company to protect all of you and rather self aggrandisingly told him that he didn’t know what that kind of sacrifice was like and he couldn’t judge me. He told me he knew just what it was like.” Jane says slowly.

“Bro was apparently terrible all of the time but Dirk didn’t want to get help because that might split him and Dave up and neither of them wanted that.” she explains.

“Dave mentioned something like that.” you nod.

“So he had to wait until he was old enough to adopt Dave, like he ended up doing. But it put him in a position where he was getting hurt when he could have run, kind of like I was doing. So yes, I knew, but only after it was all over.” Jane explains.

“Why didn’t they tell us sooner? Why not just make us promise not to say anything?” you ask in bewilderment.

“Well sometimes we break promises when people we care about are in danger and we think we can help but also, knowing Dirk at least, there was probably some shame there.” Jane says staring down at her carpeted floor.

“What?! Why would they be ashamed it was their fucking BROTHER who should be ashamed!” you yell and Jane hushes you.

“I agree but, well, it doesn’t always feel like that. And you know Dave looks up to you, he wouldn’t want you to think less of him. I know what I went through with the company was different but I felt ashamed all the time, like it was my fault for allowing it even though I was just a kid when they roped me into all of that.” Jane trails off.

You don’t need to ask her if she still feels that way.

“I feel kind of bad that I made him tell me.” you admit.

“What made him tell you, anyway?” Jane asks curiously.

“I told him I’d believe him about the game if he explained about this, not that I knew what _this_ was when I asked him to.” you say with a shake of your head.

Jane just nods and folds her hands over her knees. You look back at the carpet of Jane’s clean bedroom floor again.

Dave definitely didn’t lie to you.

“This game thing isn’t some elaborate birthday prank?” you ask hesitantly.

“I wish it was, but no.” she says sadly.

“The world is really going to end then? Everyone’s going to die but us?! There has to be something we can do!” you insist desperately.

Stupidly your mind runs to every movie poster in your room and the thought that all of those actors will be dead. Everyone in your school will be dead. It just can’t be! Your mind instinctively recoils from the idea like an animal backing out of a trap.

“John, it’s ok. I mean, it’s not but there’s nothing we can do. The rest of us have been working on this for a long time, all you need to do tomorrow is play the game. I’m sorry that it’s going to be such a hectic birthday for you, but we’re all working to do everything we can to get through it.” she tells you, resting a hand on your shoulder.

You think of all the places you’ve never been, the ‘must see’ destinations in the world that you’ll never go to. You think about how you never even got to finish school and find out what you’d be when you grew up. You’d always kind of hoped you might be able to go to the same college as your friends and grow up together, maybe they’d take a year off and you could all be in the same year.

“At… least I get to see my friends.” you say weakly.

“That’s what I keep telling myself too.” your sister says unhappily.

Your name is JOHN EGBERT and tomorrow is your thirteenth birthday and your last day on Earth. Hopefully it won’t also be your last day anywhere else.


End file.
